According to the report: Junker, who pulled down a salary of more than $500,000 as of 2009, spent $1,200 of bowl money at a strip joint. He pushed bowl employees to donate to certain political candidates then reimbursed them with at least $46,000 in bowl money -- an alleged violation of election law. He used bowl funds on everything from family trips to wedding gifts.

Meanwhile, the athletes generating the TV ratings for bowl games such as the Fiesta are being punished for accepting improper benefits and selling their own awards. The competing images of bowl executives throwing around money in a business classified as a nonprofit and athletes being slapped down for nickel-and-dime transgressions is enough to make those paying attention a bit queasy.

That contrast isn’t new. Colleges with spectator sports nearly always have profited in some way from ostensibly amateur athletes. What has changed in the past two decades is the amassing of money and power of an organization that runs the championship for colleges’ most popular sport but has little stake in its off-the-field integrity: the Bowl Championship Series.

NCAA officials themselves wrote in a 1993 report exploring the feasibility of a Division I-A football playoff of the drawbacks of an outside entity running one of the NCAA’s major championships:

“The Division I-A postseason football structure operates in a largely unregulated and uncoordinated environment, subject to limited financial and auditing requirements of the NCAA Special Events Committee and subject to a much greater extent to the judgments of three other entities:

“a. Television companies interested in scheduling the bowl games on dates and times to maximize audience ratings; b. Bowl game associations interested in local and regional tourism impacts, and c. Most recently, corporate sponsors interested in image visibility.”

It is yet to be seen whether NCAA members — the university presidents and officials who actually vote through changes — will address any of the issues currently roiling the landscape of big-time college sports. But in the wake of the Fiesta Bowl revelations, it seems that the place to start is football.

In that arena, it seems that the only thing worse than suffering the NCAA’s oversight is not having enough of it.